


The Queen of Neptune

by erikhanberg



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mystery, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21668038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erikhanberg/pseuds/erikhanberg
Summary: A Veronica Mars mystery set early in the show. A young nerdy nephew of a PCH-er brings a puzzling case to Veronica. He believes his opponent in a chess tournament cheated him out of chess scholarship to Hearst College. Veronica has just days to prove it, but as she digs into the case, she discovers a web of industrial espionage and a cold war between Neptune's richest families.Veronica is in a race again time if she wants to stay the queen of Neptune.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	The Queen of Neptune

**“The Queen of Neptune”**

a _Veronica Mars_ novella

By Erik Hanberg

**Chapter 1**

“Don’t look now, Veronica, but you’ve got an admirer at six o’clock,” Wallace said.

“Everyone is an admirer of me, Wallace. That’s why we’re having lunch with a table full of all my friends,” Veronica said, her hands indicating their empty table.

“Well, this admirer has been staring at you for the past ten minutes.”

Veronica turned to look over her shoulder at the courtyard of Neptune High School. At first glance, she didn’t see anyone who stood out. Then her eyes sharpened and she systematically searched the faces as her father had taught her. Without a process, it was so easy to overlook someone when— _there_.

The young man had cast a furtive glance in her direction before quickly returning his gaze to a book. Short black hair. A dark complexion. And young. With the immense green backpack he was wearing, his thick glasses, and the way he was hunched over his book, he reminded her a bit of a turtle.

She turned back to Wallace and to her lunch, shaking her head, causing her light blond hair to brush her cheeks. “ _Boys_. They stare at you for ten minutes, but as soon you notice them, they’re too scared to look you in the eye.”

“I don’t think you know just how intimidating you are, Veronica.”

“I’m a sweet little marshmallow—I wouldn’t harm a fly,” she winked.

“Well, go easy on this little fly, because he’s heading this way,” Wallace said.

Veronica didn’t turn around, but kept eating her lunch. She and Wallace were at their traditional table in the commons. It was easy to get it to themselves every day. The Oh-niners—the rich kids from the wealthy 90909 zip code—seemed to think there was a radioactive bubble between them and her. And everyone else at Neptune had their own friendships, which they’d formed over their first two years of high school.

Veronica had that once—then lost it. That was the problem with murder. It didn’t just kill her best friend Lilly. No, it had to tear apart her friendships and her family, too.

She still had her dad, and now Wallace—who she sometimes felt was only her friend because he was new to Neptune and hadn’t known any better.

“H… Hello,” a small voice said. Standing next to the table was the young man, his youth now even more apparent. Veronica could barely believe he was on the same high school campus with her. His Coke-bottle glasses made his young eyes even bigger. Standing this close, he looked more like a fawn than a turtle. “I need your help,” he said.

“Someone steal your lunch money?” Veronica asked, already looking back to her own lunch.

“No. My college scholarship,” he answered quietly. He adjusted his glasses. “Four years to Hearst College. Full ride.”

Now he had Veronica’s attention. Hearst College might not be the most expensive school in the area, but a four-year full scholarship wasn’t chump change. But how did you steal a scholarship? It wasn’t just a piece of paper.

“What’s a kid like you doing thinking about college already?” Wallace asked.

“I’m twelve!” the youth said defiantly.

“Little young for high school, that’s all I’m saying,” Wallace said, holding his hands up in a sort of apology.

“I skipped fourth and fifth grade.”

“Neptune’s very own Doogie,” Wallace quipped, which earned a withering look from Veronica.

“My name is _Sergio_ ,” he corrected.

“You must be smart to skip two grades, Sergio,” Veronica said.

“I’m going to skip next year, too. I want to finish high school in three years.”

“What’s the rush?” Wallace asked.

“Yeah, who wouldn’t want to spend four years watching the Oh-niners learn how they can spend their way out of every problem they encounter?” Veronica added.

“They aren’t the ones who bother me. It’s my brother Esteban. He keeps trying to recruit me—he’s one of the bikers,” Sergio explained.

“He rides with Weevil?” Veronica asked.

Sergio nodded.

Eli Navarro—better known as Weevil—was the leader of the Pacific Coast Highway bike gang. They were formidable, and that gave Veronica a better understanding of what Sergio was facing. For someone smart enough to skip two grades before high school, a future in the PCHers must look like the worst possible fate. A college scholarship would mean everything.

“Tell me, Sergio, how does a twelve-year-old get a college scholarship in the first place—let alone get it stolen.”

Sergio dropped his backpack onto the bench of the table and pulled out a printed flyer. He laid it on the table. Veronica turned her head to read it. In the middle of the flyer was a chess piece—a queen, she was pretty certain, although she had only a passing knowledge of the pieces and how they moved. The flyer advertised a chess tournament, with a four-year scholarship to Hearst College as the top prize.

Going by the dates on the flyer, the tournament had taken place over the weekend in the gymnasium of Neptune High, finishing just the day before.

“ _That’s_ why basketball practice was cancelled yesterday!” Wallace exclaimed, looking at the flyer on the table. “For _chess_? We’ve already lost two players to injuries in a week, and now I find out that basketball got bumped from our own gym for some _board game_?”

“Chess is the game of kings,” Sergio said, his chin high in the air.

“No, that’s still basketball. The Sacramento Kings. Maybe you’ve heard of them?” Wallace said.

“Chess has more combat than football, more strategy than baseball, and more drama than a silly basketball game,” Sergio said. “But it’s all in here,” he added, pointing to his temple.

Wallace stared at Sergio, with his mouth hanging open. “But—I mean have you seen—more drama, are you _kidding_ me? I don’t even…” Wallace could barely put a sentence together. “You know, I think I need to sit this one out, Veronica. I’m going to go tell the team captain why we lost our gym time a week before the biggest game of the season.”

Veronica waited for Wallace to get out of earshot before picking the conversation back up with Sergio. “So you played in the tournament yesterday?” Veronica asked.

Sergio nodded. “It was three days. Friday to Sunday.”

“And you lost, I take it.”

“The final round was last night. Just me and a senior from Pan High named Andrew Spencer.”

“Pan High? That’s the team Wallace plays this week. Big week for the old rivalry.”

Sergio ignored her comment. “Andrew _cheated_ … He must have.”

“I take it that means you don’t have any evidence.”

Sergio pulled a VHS tape out of his massive backpack. “My uncle filmed all my games over the weekend. This is the game with Andrew. I’ve watched it three times since last night, but I just can’t figure out how he cheated. That’s why I came to you.”

“Just because you lost doesn’t mean he cheated, you know. With a brother trying to recruit you into the PCHers, I’m sure you thought the scholarship was the answer to all your problems. But things don’t always work out like they do in the fairy tales just because you want something badly enough.” Veronica knew the truth of that one all too well.

Sergio was already shaking his head. “You don’t know how chess works. I’m _good_. Sit me down across from anyone within a hundred miles of here and I’ll win. Any tournament I can get to on a bus line, I’ll play in. And I _always_ win. But Andrew has never played in any tournaments. He’s unrated—there’s no record that Andrew Spencer has played a chess game in his life before this weekend. But somehow he won.”

“People get lucky, Sergio.”

“Not in chess.”

“Maybe he’s a chess prodigy, then.”

“Being one myself, I would have recognized him as a kindred spirit. Trust me, he’s not a secret chess champion. He _cheated_.”

Veronica felt herself getting annoyed. Turned out the turtle had something of an ego.

“Listen, you’re a freshman. Just play again next year.”

“The tournament happens only every four years. It won’t happen again until after I’ve graduated.”

Veronica wasn’t getting anywhere arguing, so she tried a new tactic. “Normally my fee is ten percent of anything I recover. But I don’t know how to collect ten percent of a scholarship.”

“I can give you ten percent of what I win in every tournament I play in before I graduate from high school.”

“That and a nickel will get me a cup of coffee.” It was a phrase she’d heard once, but now that she’d said it, she wondered where she could get coffee for a nickel.

“In my last tournament I won five thousand dollars.”

Veronica sat up straighter. “For playing _chess_? You won five thousand dollars for winning at a _game_?” She suddenly found herself trying to remember just how the chess pieces moved on the board.

Sergio nodded.

Veronica realized how much she had just sounded like Wallace. “So what’s the problem? Seems like someone who can win that much playing chess shouldn’t need a scholarship.”

“Esteban found the prize money and took it. He sunk it all into his bike. He always finds my winnings. But the way I figure it… he can’t steal a scholarship.”

Veronica thought about her own college fund. Normally, whenever she took a case for a student at Neptune, her ten percent cut would earn her a few hundred dollars—maybe a thousand if some Oh-niner needed her help recovering some luxury item that only a rich parent would buy and only a rich student would lose.

But this was intriguing. Ten percent of Sergio’s winnings until he graduated might actually add up. So long as she could get the money before his older brother found it. Another problem for another day.

“OK, Sergio, you’ve got a deal. I’ll take your case. What else do I need to know?”

“I lodged a formal complaint with the California Chess Federation. They’re sending an official Wednesday after school to review the game sheets and interview Andrew and me. If you can prove he cheated, he’ll be disqualified and I’ll get the scholarship. But if they certify the win for Andrew, then it’s gone forever. And if that’s the case, I may as well start saving up for my own motorcycle so I’m ready to ride with Esteban and Weevil.”

Wednesday afternoon was just over forty-eight hours away. Veronica half-grimaced and half-smiled. “Nothing like a ticking clock to keep things interesting.”

**Chapter 2**

Wanting to get a jump on the investigation, Veronica told Ms. Dent, the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, that she wanted to do a story on what Pan High students thought of the big rivalry game with Neptune. Ms. Dent agreed, and it worked to get Veronica off campus early and headed for Neptune’s closest rival.

As she drove, she tried to think about all the possible cons Andrew Spencer could have used to win the game. Sergio had told her about the security preparations players had to go through, and they were immense. A three-foot tall barrier between the bleachers and the court kept the chess players separate from the audience. Players had to walk through a metal detector before entering the secure playing area, and once they were in, they couldn’t leave for any reason without being disqualified (the gym’s locker rooms were inside the secure area and there was a table of sandwiches and drinks, so at least everyone could take bathroom breaks and eat something). Which meant Andrew didn’t have a computer, a phone, a tin can, or any other communication device on him.

The biggest problem with the isolation, Sergio said, was getting bored. If your opponent was stuck, it might be several minutes before it was your turn to move again. Many players had a paperback book with them to keep occupied, and apparently, so did Andrew Spencer.

In fact, the one thing Sergio had noticed was that Andrew had been reading his book _a lot_ during their game. So much so, that Sergio had taken note of what he was reading. _The Knights of the Round Table_ , some dreary “classic” that Veronica—and the rest of her freshman year English class—had attempted to slog through before eventually giving up on the old English writing of “thee” and “ye” and “by my troth”—by her troth, it was more archaic than ye olde Shakespeare.

That Andrew would be reading it seemed frankly unbelievable, and made Veronica believe Sergio even more. Finding the book seemed like the first step towards proving that Andrew had cheated.

When Veronica pulled into the student parking lot, Pan High School had twenty-eight minutes left before the last bell of the day. She was already cutting it close. The opening act of her plan was risky enough and her second act required time—time and quiet.

Veronica aimed for where she thought the main office would be, but she kept getting confused. The layout of Pan High School was surprisingly close to that of Neptune, but just different enough that every so often Veronica would walk in a circle—and once, nearly into a wall where there should have been a door.

When she finally found the office, she’d burned eight minutes of time. Outside the office, Veronica checked her reflection in the glass of a window. Her blond hair was up in pigtails, and she was wearing Sergio’s Coke-bottle glasses—which were already giving her the start of a headache. A flowery pinafore dress was over a white blouse with a high collar and honest-to-goodness ruffles on the shoulder.

Ah, the perils of fitting into youth-size clothing.

Veronica had played older a few times when she’d needed to, but this was the first time she’d tried going younger. Sergio’s own youth had inspired it, and based on her reflection, she thought she had a fighting chance.

Veronica watched through the small window between the hallway and the main office, waiting for her moment. She kicked her backpack and her shoes against the wall, hoping her socks would quiet her entrance.

Finally, the secretary—who looked to be alone in the room—left her station at the front counter to use the copier. Veronica rushed in as quietly as she could. She was just getting into place when the secretary turned around. Veronica crouched at the knees so that the majority of her body was below the counter. So long five-one, hello four-six!

“Oh my word, child!” The secretary exclaimed. “I didn’t hear you come in!”

Veronica put her voice as high as she could without the risk of it cracking. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right! Maybe it’s time to get my hearing aid checked. Now what can I do for you, young lady?”

Veronica carefully slipped a piece of a paper onto the counter, leaving as much of her arms below it as she could. The secretary looked at it through her bifocals and read it aloud.

“‘To whom it may concern—last night Andrew Spencer’s father took Andrew on an overnight fishing trip without informing me or school staff. I apologize for his actions—this is exactly why we are separating.’ Oh my!” the secretary looked at Veronica with sorrowful eyes before returning to the note. “‘Andrew will need his books from his locker for doing homework when he returns tonight. Please tell his sister Matilda his locker number so she can bring them home with her.’

“Oh, Matilda, I had no idea about your parents! I just saw them before parent-teacher conferences last week. What happened?”

“It’s not my fault,” Veronica replied immediately.

“Of course not, dear. Of course not. I’m glad they’ve told you that.”

“It’s because of paint,” Veronica said in her high voice.

The secretary looked at her, puzzled. “Did you say paint, child?”

“Yes, ma’am, paint stripper. It’s a chemical used to remove paint from surfaces. I looked it up online after I overheard Mommy was mad at Daddy for using strippers but then Daddy said that if Mommy did it herself, he wouldn’t need to use them. But why would Mommy need to remove paint? Do you understand what they meant?”

Veronica was worried she’d oversold her supposed innocence, but the secretary had gone ashen, and was stumbling over herself to find a response. She finally turned to the computer. “Why don’t I just find that locker number for you, Matilda? Busy day, things to do!”

“Of course, ma’am. I’m sorry to have interrupted you.”

“No, no, no. No trouble at all. Here he is—Andrew is assigned locker number 1052. That’s out the door and to your left.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Veronica said. Her eyes were starting to water from the thick glasses and her knees were starting to cramp from staying in a crouch. She suddenly realized she didn’t have an exit plan that would get her out the door without the secretary seeing her true height.

“Do you know the combination, Matilda?” The secretary asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” Veronica held up a piece of paper where she had scribbled three random digits. “I don’t want to get lost, ma’am. Do you have a map of the school I could take with me?”

“Oh, yes. Well, let me see what I have here.” The secretary turned around and started to bend over to look in a cabinet. Veronica didn’t wait for the map. As soon as the woman’s gaze was turned, Veronica was sprinting toward the door in her stocking feet.

In the girl’s bathroom, Veronica undid the pigtails and shoved the ruffled blouse and Sergio’s glasses into her backpack. Just wearing the pinafore dress left way more of her exposed than she was used to, but it couldn’t be helped—the middle-school look was going to get her singled out faster than showing a little skin in Southern California. She looked in the mirror—she’d gone from almost ten to pushing twenty-five. She doubted even the secretary could recognize her now.

She checked her watch. Ten minutes before the last bell.

Veronica darted out of the bathroom and raced for locker 1052. She finally found it on the bottom row on a bank of lockers. She made a quick assessment. Plan A was already out. She’d been praying for a lock with a key—which she knew she could pick in less than sixty seconds—but she wasn’t that lucky. The round black face of the combination lock taunted her.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t crack it—she’d brought the stethoscope from the supply closet of Mars Investigations and she knew how to beat it. But it took time. More than ten minutes, usually. So scratch Plan B, too.

Which left her with one option.

Veronica checked both ways and pulled a three-foot long pair of bolt cutters out of her oversized backpack. “Hello, Plan C,” she said, addressing the tool.

She snapped through the combination lock in seconds. Andrew would know instantly that he’d been robbed, but he was probably going to know that pretty fast with whichever plan she’d chosen. Veronica quickly searched through his locker. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she muttered. Between two textbooks was a black DVD case with a blank disc inside. No writing or labels on the disc or the case. Promising.

She tucked it in her bag and kept searching. A wadded up hoodie kept blocking her way when she realized it was heavier than it should be. In the single pocket at the front of the sweatshirt—on which Property of Pan High Wrestling was printed—was a paperback book. _The Knights of the Round Table_.

Bingo.

Veronica was as far from Andrew Spencer’s locker as she could get when the final bell rang. She took a few minutes to ask students about the big basketball game on Friday, identifying herself only as “Veronica from newspaper.” No one at Pan seemed to wonder who the new girl in the pinafore dress was. She hadn’t actually been looking for a story when she’d suggested the idea to Ms. Dent, but the anger at Neptune expressed by the Pan High students made her glad she hadn’t identified where she went to school. If she came here again, she’d need a better cover story.

_I don’t like Neptune High either!_ She wanted to shout. _Let’s talk smack about the Oh-niners together!_ But it was of no use. Neptune High was considered enemy territory here. And if she were being honest with herself, being at Pan made her want to stick up for her school—even if she had about eighteen thousand problems with its students and administration. Ugh. Did she actually have some school spirit? How cliché.

Back in the car, she pulled out the paperback and flipped through it. It looked very similar to her old copy from freshman year. Some underlined sentences had been flagged for study of symbolism or allegory during class, and it obviously had been barely read after the first fifty pages. There wasn’t enough in the book to hold her interest right now, especially with this blank DVD case next to her.

She opened the case and popped the disc into the side of her laptop.

An intro screen automatically popped up. The disc contained a computer program. And not just any computer program. This was a _chess_ tutorial. Below the menu options was a high score list. A user named WrestlingAndy had been going through tutorials and posting scores when he completed each one. She clicked on the most recent completed tutorial.

A chessboard came up and a screen showed an illuminated piece in the center of the board. Suddenly two squares diagonal to the piece lit up, and a tinny voice came from her laptop speakers: “This is how the pawn attacks. Can you move him to a square that will take the bishop?”

Andrew Spencer had just won a major chess tournament, and yet he was just learning how the pieces moved? Whatever doubts she’d had about Sergio’s story were now gone. Veronica savored the moment. She looked at the book cover in the seat next to her and smiled. “O’ Andrew of Pan High, ye are so verily verily _busted_.”

**Chapter 3**

“But why isn’t the chess tutorial enough to prove he cheated?” Sergio exclaimed. Veronica had come to his house after leaving Pan High to return his glasses and tell him what she’d learned—although she glided over the details of how she’d learned it. Clients usually didn’t like to see how the sausage was made.

“For a lot of reasons, Sergio. There’s no conclusive proof that Andrew Spencer is the user WrestlingAndy, even though it’s highly suggestive,” she said, rushing through that last part because he was trying to interrupt again. “And even if we _could_ prove it, I couldn’t find any dates of when he’d completed the tutorials. Or he could say he was just playing around with it for fun.” Veronica indicated the many chess books stacked around his bedroom. “Some of these books must be beneath you, right?”

He harrumphed, but didn’t argue.

“He could say that learning about the pawns was just a kind of research,” she continued.

“They say that pawns are the soul of chess. Maybe people would believe it,” Sergio said with a shrug.

Veronica didn’t quite follow that but she nodded. “Just picking up a tutorial is not enough. Understood?”

Finally, Sergio sighed. “Fine. Understood. And the book?”

“Inconclusive so far. I’m going to have it open tonight while I watch the tape your uncle made. I’d like to get a sense of how he references it during the game. There are a lot of ways he might have cheated that have nothing to do with the book. It might be a false lead.”

“You mean a red herring?” Sergio asked eagerly.

It was Veronica’s turn to sigh. Everyone thought they knew how to solve a case because they read a pulpy mystery novel once. “Have you ever actually tried red herring? Dad bought a jar of them once as a joke. They taste awful.”

Sergio made a face.

“Investigations are usually boring, Sergio. Long nights in a car on a stakeout with nothing to do… it’s about routine. That’s where the real work is. This job isn’t as glamorous as you think.”

“Chess probably isn’t as glamorous as you think, either.”

Veronica stared at him and then burst out laughing. Sergio smiled, pleased with his joke. Veronica was about to say something when the front door opened. In the small house, every creak was easily audible everywhere else. She recognized the sound of the screen door clattering shut from when she’d entered.

Sergio looked frozen in terror. His older brother Esteban barged into the room, still wearing his leather outerwear. “You win any money from that chess tournament yesterday, _hermano_? I want to replace the gearbox on—” Suddenly Esteban noticed Veronica on the other side of him.

She hadn’t changed out of the pinafore, and Veronica was never more conscious of how exposed she was.

“Who is your lady friend, _hermano_?” Esteban asked. “You’re too young to have a woman like this in your bedroom. You wouldn’t know what to do with her.” He was approaching Veronica, swaying like a predator as he did. And she had the definite sense he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Veronica stepped forward as confidently as she could, and was heartened that Esteban took a step back in surprise. She looked at him coolly, as if he didn’t matter. “How dare you question me, Esteban? What I do for Weevil is none of your business. Even if it involves your own brother. Understood?”

“You know Weevil? What—”

“He won’t appreciate you putting your nose where it doesn’t belong. You know how he gets.”

Esteban looked at her, suspicious but wary. “Bitch, you better not be lying to me.”

“Tell Weevil you called his friend Veronica Mars a bitch. See what he does to you then,” Veronica snapped, stepping toward the door of the bedroom. “See you around, Sergio. And _you_ ,” she said, pointing at Esteban. “You ask your brother what confidential business Weevil had with him, and you’ll have both Weevil and I coming for you.”

Veronica left the brothers speechless as the screen door clattered shut behind her.

Back at home, Veronica found a note from her dad. He was on a stakeout—ever since he’d been drummed out as sheriff it was freelance investigative work that kept the lights on and the bills paid—and wouldn’t be home until late. She got a quick meal going for herself on the stove and popped Sergio’s VHS tape into the slot on their player. Veronica watched as the screen came to life. Although maybe “life” was too strong a word to describe what was on screen. Two figures, hunched over a chessboard in the middle of the Neptune High gymnasium—if there was any doubt of the location, she could see the long line of the basketball team’s championship banners Wallace was so proud of hanging from the rafters in the upper left. Sergio was on the left side of the board and Andrew was on the right. Behind them was an easel that had a large chessboard on it.

For several seconds nothing happened. Then Andrew reached forward and made a move. He tapped something next to the board—a pair of clocks, it looked like—and then it was Sergio’s turn. A man standing next to the easel made the same move on the large chessboard—so people could see what was happening in the game, Veronica realized. Sergio sat staring at the pieces until finally—and Veronica timed this one—four minutes elapsed. He moved a piece and tapped on the pair of clocks.

Veronica couldn’t handle it. She pressed fast forward and saw that there was three hours left on the tape. “Kill me now,” Veronica said aloud. It was the most boring video ever constructed. She had dinner to make, she had homework, and she had Lilly’s murder to solve… But somehow she was stuck watching this.

She decided to try to keep the video on in the background for the first run-through. After she made dinner, she set up her computer on the kitchen table and studied the software on the disc more closely while she ate. The program was called Oceanside Chess Tutorial, which seemed like an odd name for something related to chess, but Veronica let that go for now. She ran through one of the lessons just to see what it was like. Her initial impression was correct—it was incredibly basic. She completed the tutorial in just a few minutes.

“Congratulations, WrestlingAndy,” the screen said. “Would you like to log your score online now?”

Veronica frowned. The scores were clearly stored locally on the read/write disc—otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to see Andrew’s scores. But she hadn’t realized there was a website as well.

She clicked yes and the browser opened a site to log in scores. There was an online ranking board and—just as it was on the disc—every score on it was from WrestlingAndy. She frowned more deeply and poked around the site.

Finally she called her friend Mac.

“Hi, Veronica, what’s up?”

“I’ve got a URL I want to chat you,” Veronica said, pinching the phone between her cheek and her shoulder so she could use both hands on the keyboard. She copied and pasted the link into her chat program. “I need your special brand of expertise on this one.”

Cindy “Mac” Mackenzie had solved every computer question Veronica had given her. Veronica was no technophobe, but the things Mac could do with computers even gave Veronica pause sometimes.

“A chess tutorial?” Mac asked. “You taking up a new hobby instead of solving cases?”

“Do I look like a little old man in a park with nothing else to do with my day? This is for a case. Tell me, Mac—am I crazy, or does it look like this entire site only has one user, WrestlingAndy.”

Mac was silent, but Veronica could hear the keystrokes over the phone, which meant Mac was already working on it.

“Yes,” Mac confirmed after a few moments. “That’s what I’m seeing too.”

“Do you think anyone else is logging on to view the scores?” Veronica asked, a thought that had just occurred to her. Why post to a website unless someone else was checking up on Andrew?

“Anything’s possible. Give me a day to try to hack the site’s analytics software and I should be able to tell you if anyone else has been viewing this page besides you and me.”

“A day? You’re slipping, Mac.”

“No, but I am supposed to make a diorama about Abraham Lincoln’s personal life for history class tomorrow. The problem with crafty homework assignments is that you can’t hack your way into the answer key.”

Veronica smiled. “Just so I don’t think I’m going crazy—this is pretty weird, right? There’s this whole chess tutorial site and it has no other users except this one high school student? I don’t get it.”

“It is weird, but you don’t know the half of it. Oceanside was originally developed as a chess supercomputer.”

“You mean you’ve heard of this program?” Veronica asked in surprise.

“Only by reputation. Chess used to be a common game to give computers to test their processing speeds. And a computer that could beat a world champion would mean millions in free publicity for whichever company did it first. IBM won the race in 1996 when their computer Deep Blue beat the then-reigning world champion. After that, a lot of the other projects—like Oceanside—were shut down.”

“Why?”

“Because once IBM won, no one wanted to spend all that money to be second. So that’s what’s really weird to me here. I mean, you’re right, it’s weird that WrestlingAndy is the only user of this tutorial website. But it’s even weirder that someone turned Oceanside into a chess tutorial. I feel like I would have heard about that.”

“Is everyone in the know about chess except me?” Veronica exclaimed in frustration. She looked at the television screen. So far as she could tell, it looked identical to the last time she’d looked, though several minutes had passed.

“I don’t follow,” Mac said.

She sounded confused and Veronica held the phone away from her mouth as she sighed. “No big deal. Just feeling like there’s this whole world I don’t know anything about, but everyone else does,” Veronica said.

“I don’t know anything about chess. Not at all.”

Now it was Veronica’s turn to be confused. “Then why did you think you would have heard about Oceanside being turned into a chess tutorial?” Veronica asked.

Mac was quiet for a moment and then gulped. “I’m sorry, Veronica, I shouldn’t have assumed you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“When I said that the Oceanside chess program was a competitor to IBM’s Deep Blue, I guess I skipped mentioning the company that developed it. It’s Kane Software.”

**Chapter 4**

Kane Software. Owned by Jake Kane, the father of Veronica’s ex-boyfriend Duncan and of course—of Veronica’s best friend Lilly. It was a punch to the gut to hear unexpectedly.

The company had gotten big—and made the Kanes rich—because of streaming video. Veronica had no idea that they’d ever had a hand in chess or supercomputers. “You’re sure about this?” Veronica asked.

“Positive. Lots of companies tried to get into this back in the day. Kane Software was definitely one of them. If IBM’s Deep Blue had lost, Oceanside was next in line to play against the world champion a few months later.”

Veronica’s mind was racing, and over the phone she could hear the keys on Mac’s keyboard flying even faster than before. “Yep. Here it is. Oceanside was shut down in 1996. There’s no record that they did anything more with it. No software, no tutorials, no nothing. Where did you find this program, Veronica?”

“Pan High School,” Veronica said. She filled Mac in on what she knew so far. “And now I discover that Andrew Spencer has a bootlegged copy of a piece of software that isn’t even supposed to exist,” she concluded, running a hand through her hair.

What had seemed like a straightforward case of cheating to win a scholarship was now something much more complicated. Software piracy maybe?

“There’s a name in the developer notes,” Mac said. “Chris Hopper. He’s probably the programmer. Just let me do a quick search online… annnnnnnd, yep. Kane Software. Want his email address?”

“Where would my cases be without your help, Mac?” Veronica asked sweetly.

“The way I figure it, if you didn’t have cases to work on, you’d probably be doing telemarketing or something. And I really don’t want you on the other end of the line trying to sell me long-distance service. You’d be scary good at that job.”

“I would, wouldn’t I?” Veronica laughed. “Later, Mac.”

Veronica copied Chris Hopper’s email address out of her chat program and created an email in an anonymous Hotmail account she maintained for occasions such as this one. She took a screenshot of the chess tutorial and attached it to the email. Under the image, she tried to decide what to write. _I have a bootleg copy of Oceanside. Want it back? Meet me at Neptune Point Park tonight at sunset._

The subject line was easy: Checkmate.

Two hours later, Veronica was waiting at Neptune Point Park. In the interim, she had focused on two projects. One was a plan to get ready for her meeting with Chris—for which she needed even more technological help from Mac. The other was a surprise gift for Mac—a little something to say thank you. Veronica dropped it off on Mac’s family’s porch, pressed the doorbell, and hurried back to her running car.

She wondered what Mac would think when she discovered the completed diorama of Abraham Lincoln in the White House… playing chess, of course.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Veronica kept a lookout. There was a couple necking on the bench nearby, and another woman with bright pink hair who was nervously staring out at the water when she wasn’t looking around expectantly—waiting for a date to arrive, Veronica guessed.

Veronica looked at her phone and checked her email. No response from Chris Hopper. Veronica had dealt with computer programmers before—she remembered the two game developers who were funding their startup through a scam that had snared a girl Wallace had been briefly interested in. That’s the kind of guy she was looking for in the park—just a decade or two older. Skin pale from staying indoors all the time. Poor social skills. But there was no one like that here.

Mac would have been furious if she’d heard Veronica’s mental image of a computer geek. “We’re not all like that!” she would have said, and she was certainly right. Mac herself was the proof that…

Veronica paused and looked around again. The sun had just set. She looked over at the woman waiting alone by the railing overlooking the beach. “Are you Chris?” Veronica called.

The woman looked up in surprise, and Veronica knew she’d guessed correctly. Well, at least it had been Mac who had initially confused Chris for a man, not her.

Veronica approached her. “I guess I was expecting to meet a guy.”

Chris raised her chin in recognition. “Me too.”

Veronica stepped closer and Chris’s eyes widened. “I know you!”

Daughter of the disgraced sheriff? Best friend killed? Getting recognized by strangers was always a blast.

“You used to date Jake Kane’s son! You came into the office sometimes.”

Now it was Veronica’s turn to be surprised, because she barely remembered that. Every so often, Duncan had taken her to Kane Software headquarters—he had a fondness for the burgers in the cafeteria, and there had been a few times after school when they’d grabbed an early dinner there.

She hadn’t realized that she was noticed back then, but of course everyone at the company would be surreptitiously paying attention to Duncan, the boss’s son. What did they think of the young spritely girl on his arm? What did Veronica think of that innocent young girl now?

She had a sudden wave of nostalgia for those late afternoon meals taken while lounging on the company’s veranda, the ocean sparkling in the distance.

_Oceanside._

Veronica was called back to the present, where Chris Hopper had her head in her hands. “Oh my God, you’re going to tell Mr. Kane, aren’t you? I’m going to get fired for sure.”

Veronica mentally tsked. Kids, if you ever meet up with a potential blackmailer, never hand them such easy leverage. “Maybe if you come clean now, it won’t have to come to that,” Veronica said, taking full advantage.

Chris looked at Veronica hopefully. “You won’t tell?”

“Not if I get what I need. You’re the developer of the Oceanside tutorial?”

Chris nodded. “Or, I mean—I _was_. I found all that data from the Oceanside supercomputer in a file, and I built it into a chess tutorial. I built the website—everything. It was ready to ship.”

“What happened?”

“Mr. Kane killed the project at the last minute. He didn’t like any reminder that the company had lost to IBM. He said that Kane Software focuses on streaming video now, not super-computing and definitely not chess. He told me it would be bad for the brand and that our ‘opportunity cost to further the initiative didn’t pencil out.’ I tuned out after he told me no, to be honest. I hate all that corporate-speak he uses.”

Veronica held up the black DVD case. “So how did this copy of the program get to a high school student?”

Chris’s gaze fixated on the case. She shook her head with regret, tossing her pink hair around her chin. “I never should have done it.”

“Done _what_?” Veronica pushed.

“I got an email. Asking for the program. They didn’t say what it was for, only that Jake Kane would end up with egg on his face. It had only been a few weeks since he’d killed the project—I was still angry. So I sent the program.”

“To who?”

“I don’t know. I shipped the disc to a P.O. Box,” Chris said, indicating the case Veronica was holding up.

“How long ago was that?”

“Two months? Two and a half? Not more than that.”

“Did you hear anything back?”

“Nothing. I started to think it was a prank. I hadn’t given it any thought recently until tonight.”

“What about the email requesting the program. Do you still have it?”

Chris shook her head. “I deleted it. I figured it was incriminating if someone at Kane Software ever discovered it.”

“Who was the email from?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Man, woman?”

Chris shook her head. “I don’t know. A man, I think.”

“Gotta say, you’re not being much help, Chris. Maybe I should ask Jake Kane to help me finish the investigation.”

“No! I’m cooperating! I—I remember one thing about the email. It struck me as weird at the time. But it might be relevant. The account ended with a Neptune High School domain name. It looked like a student account to me.”

“ _Neptune_ High? You’re sure? Not Pan High?”

“Positive. The email came from Neptune.”

Veronica had a better of idea of how the program had gotten out of Kane Software, but she was left with a new mystery. Why had a student at Neptune High asked for it? And how it had it found its way from Neptune to Pan? As she’d learned at Pan earlier in the day, the rivalry between the schools was fiercer than she’d previously supposed. Why try to sabotage what could have been a moment of glory for Neptune?

Veronica was about to ask another question, when she heard a smash and a tinkling of glass from the parking lot. Both Chris and Veronica looked over to see a hooded figure leaning inside the passenger window of Veronica’s car.

“Hey!” Veronica called. She rushed toward her car. The figure looked up at the sound of her voice and darted away. Veronica had just made it to her car when she heard a motorcycle rev its engine. Before she could take another step, it was out of sight, its roar fading away until all she heard was the surf.

“What happened?” Chris asked, catching up to Veronica.

“Someone was getting desperate.”

“Desperate?”

“Looking for this,” Veronica said, holding up the black DVD case. “Someone doesn’t want it to get out that Andrew Spencer used Oceanside for a chess tutorial.”

“Who is Andrew Spencer?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Veronica offered the DVD to Chris. “Keep this safe for me, would you? I don’t want it on me if that guy comes back for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Keep it safe, and Jake Kane won’t hear about any of this.”

Chris only took a second to think about it. “Deal.”

“I need to get my window fixed,” Veronica said. “But I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts on that disc.”

“My thoughts?”

“I know a certain chess wizard who says there’s a major flaw in the tutorial.”

“Impossible.”

Veronica shrugged as she got into the car. “Just telling you what I know.” Veronica pulled the car away. She rolled down the driver-side window and let the cool sea air blow through the car. She smiled as she imagined Chris staring at the disc in confusion and wondering just what the heck Veronica was talking about.

**Chapter 5**

Veronica awoke with a start. She was on the couch at home. The TV screen was showing static and her dad was trying to tiptoe past her and into the bedroom.

“Dad?” Veronica asked groggily.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Watching something good?”

Veronica looked at the static on the screen and then scrounged around for the remote. She still hadn’t finished watching Sergio’s tape all the way through. She’d tried watching more of it after getting home, but apparently she’d fallen asleep on the couch. She’d had such a packed day, it was frustrating to remember that at the center of the case was this three hours of boring video footage.

Veronica remembered that earlier in the day she’d told Sergio that the real work of an investigation was about routine—about the boring work. And here she was ignoring her own advice.

“It’s for a case. For someone at high school.”

“Not Lilly?”

“Not Lilly, Dad. It’s a chess thing. Or maybe an industrial espionage thing involving the father of my ex-boyfriend. But who can keep them straight anymore?” Veronica stood on her tiptoes and kissed her father’s forehead.

“Will you be home for dinner tomorrow night?” Keith called after her.

“Can a pawn beat a queen?”

“Not usually, no.”

“So I guess we’ll see. Night, Dad.”

Sitting in her morning class the next day, Veronica felt her bag buzz against her leg. She was resentful that she had to be in class—she’d accomplished a lot in her first day on the case, but Wednesday afternoon was still approaching fast, and she didn’t have the evidence she needed to prove Andrew Spencer had cheated. So while she normally would have ignored her phone during class, this time she surreptitiously slid it out of her purse and onto the book she was supposed to be studying.

It was a text from Mac: _Thx for the Abe diorama, V! It helped me get your project done early. ;) I hacked the tutorial site. I found only 1 other user besides Andrew on the tutorial website._

_Who?_ Veronica texted.

_IP address of the other user was the same every time. Someone was checking from the Echolls’ house._

Veronica was waiting for her quarry in the main hall of Neptune High. When Logan Echolls passed by on his way to fifth period, she grabbed his shirt, and yanked him into the girl’s bathroom before he had a chance to escape.

Logan nearly bounced off the paper towel dispenser, but was able to keep his footing. He recovered and put on his best act of indifference, checking his hair in the mirror. “If you could hear the things people say you do in this bathroom, Veronica, you wouldn’t be so quick to pull a virile young man like me in here in broad daylight.”

“In broad daylight, no one would confuse you with a man, Logan.”

“Always ready with a smart-ass reply…” Logan said, turning away.

Veronica cocked her head and took a moment to look him over. Logan Echolls was a constant puzzle to her. A real friend, she’d once thought. But after Lilly’s murder, he’d turned on her, looking for creative opportunities to make her junior year at Neptune as miserable as possible. And yet… sometimes he could startle her by showing real kindness—no, maybe not directed toward her. But it was there.

“Remember when Chardo was going to run off with your girlfriend Caitlin Ford? So he raided your family’s credit card applications from your parents’ mail to woo her?” Chardo had been kicked out of the PCHers for what he’d done to Weevil and Logan had dumped Caitlin Ford like she’d suddenly moved out of the 90909. So Veronica was pretty certain Logan remembered. But this was fun anyway.

“You have about five seconds to get to the point, Veronica,” Logan said.

“When you thought your housekeeper Leticia had stolen them, your parents fired her. I want to know if she came back to work after that, or if your parents hired someone else?”

“That’s what you hauled me in here for? To talk about the _help_?”

“Just answer the question, Logan.”

“My room’s clean when I get home and there’s beer in the fridge,” he shrugged. “That’s all I know. Are we done now?”

“I’m trying to find out who had access to a computer at your home other than you. I don’t think you would have cared about a chess tournament, but maybe I’m mistaken.”

“A chest tournament, now let me think… is that when girls enter a wet t-shirt contest to show off their chests? Because I do like those.”

“Grow up, Logan.”

“Sad you’ll never win the booby prize, Veronica?”

“I’m going to show you the door now, Logan,” Veronica said, grabbing Logan by the collar again and pushing him toward the exit. “See. It’s the part of the wall you can walk through.”

She pried the door open with one hand and shoved him through it with the other.

Veronica shook her head in exasperation, not at Logan but at herself. She didn’t know why she ever expected anything more from him.

That afternoon in newspaper, Veronica turned in her piece to Ms. Dent on the rivalry—as seen through the eyes of Pan High.

“This is well done, Veronica,” Ms. Dent said, scanning through the article. “It tells another side to the story. Nice to give Pan High students a face.”

“I thought today I could talk to members of the Neptune basketball team, to get their feelings on the upcoming game.”

Ms. Dent nodded. “All right, Veronica. Keep turning in good work like this.”

Once in the gym, Veronica found that basketball practice had started early. Of course the teachers had all let the basketball players out of class early. This was Neptune. And the only things more important than academics were sports, winning, and money.

Wallace was on the court, so she went to the sidelines and interviewed some of the team members for her story, while waiting for Wallace to catch a moment’s break. Once she was done, she found a spot in the bleachers. A couple of students were in the bleachers as well, including a surprising face—Caitlin Ford, Logan’s ex-girlfriend. It seemed to Veronica like she’d vanished from Neptune since Logan had dumped her. But maybe this is where she’d been all that time—cheering on the fighting Pirates. Or maybe Veronica had only noticed her because she’d just mentioned her to Logan earlier in the day.

Caitlin saw Veronica looking up at her and she gave Veronica the finger. Maybe she was an outcast from the Oh-niners just like Veronica, but that didn’t mean they were going to bond over their shared situation and become BFFs.

Veronica held up all of her fingers but her middle one. “I’d tell you to read between the lines, but you’re not one to pick up on subtext.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly.”

There was a buzzer and Wallace came over to the stands, covered with sweat but as happy as she’d seen him. She’d forgotten how much Wallace liked playing sports.

“What’s shaking, Veronica?” Wallace asked.

“Doing a quick story for the newspaper about the big game. How’d you guys score the early practice?” Veronica asked.

“We’re making up as best we can for the time we lost Sunday for the chess tournament.”

“Is the team going to be ready? Have those two injured players recovered?”

Wallace’s face darkened. “No. They can’t play. Ian’s bike accident twisted his ankle pretty badly and Reggie’s finger means he’s out for the season. And now we’ve lost Nick when he failed a drug test.”

“A drug test?”

“Anonymous tip to the school. They had to test him. So that’s three of our best players—not counting me, of course—all out of commission for the big game.”

“I guess that means more playing time for you,” Veronica said, trying to lighten the mood.

“One man, even with my own talents, can’t carry a team, Veronica.”

Another basketball player brushed by her on his way up the bleachers, almost knocking her over. She recognized him as James Houghton, who wasn’t an Oh-niner, but he was strong enough at sports to hang with them. He hurried up the stands toward Caitlin. Veronica turned to see Caitlin throw her arms around him as he sat next to her. She offered him a water bottle and James drank deeply.

“What’s her deal?” Veronica asked.

Wallace’s face brightened. “She’s been coming for the last week or two to cheer us on. A light for the team in our troubled times. Gorgeous,” Wallace swooned.

“Yeah, yeah. Neptune’s answer to Paris Hilton.”

“You didn’t come just to ask questions for the paper, though. Did you, Veronica?” Wallace asked her.

“I was hoping to recruit you for a little… after school project.”

“It’s always about a case with you, isn’t it, Veronica? Didn’t I tell you I was going to sit this one out?”

“What if I told you that solving this case would be bad for Pan High?”

Wallace smirked. “Now you have my attention. What do you want me to do?”

“Reconnaissance,” she said, with a twinkle.

Sergio was waiting for Veronica at her car.

“Any news?” he asked eagerly. “I looked for you at lunch, but—”

“—But I was holed up in the AV room watching your tape. Nothing yet, Sergio.”

“You haven’t figured it out?”

“I’m _working_ on it, Sergio. These things take time.”

“We only have twenty-four hours until the game review!” Sergio said, a strong whine in his voice. She had almost forgotten he was twelve.

“Have faith, Sergio. You’d be amazed how much I can accomplish in a day.”

Veronica only wished she believed it herself.

When Veronica got home, she fully planned to sit in front of the TV and devote the rest of the day to watching the tape. If worse came to worse, she’d go through the damn thing frame by frame.

But when she opened the door to their apartment, Veronica found her father at the kitchen table, a chess set in front of him.

“Dad?” she asked in wonder.

“Hey sweetie. I left work early. Seemed like a good night for some father/daughter quality time.”

“I’m stretched to my limits with this case, Dad. I have twenty-four hours and just one hope left,” she said, holding up the VHS tape.

“So we’ll call this research,” Keith said, indicating the board.

Veronica sighed. She sat down across from him with a coy smile on her face. Keith moved a pawn forward. “The Ruy Lopez,” he announced.

Veronica narrowed her eyes and moved a pawn forward to match Keith’s. He said, “Ah, the Gepetto Defense. Interesting choice.”

“Is that really the move I made?” Veronica asked.

Keith smiled. “Who’s to say? Well, the Ruy Lopez is real. As for Gepetto… I learned early on that chess is a lot more fun if you pretend to know what you’re talking about.” He advanced a bishop. “This is the Tijuana Variation I’m using now.”

Veronica moved another pawn. “The Kalishnikov Variation,” she said.

“Well done.” Keith moved again. “The Scottish Gambit.”

“The Dentist Drill.”

“Ooh, I like that one. This is the Parisian Concubine.”

Veronica moved out a knight. “The Neptune Maneuver.”

“The Checkmate.”

Veronica did a double take. Her king was trapped. She’d thought her father had just been moving pieces at random, but Keith showed her how he’d won.

“Chess is fun if you can distract your opponent with silly names, too,” he said, a half-smile on his face.

“Another game, another game!” Veronica called, laughing. Keith began setting up the pieces. “It’s funny,” Veronica said, “I know how to play a little bit, but I don’t have any specific memories of you teaching me.”

“That’s because your mom taught you,” Keith said quietly as he set up the pieces. “Just like she taught me.”

“Mom played?” Veronica asked.

“She was great. She beat me every time—I only played her so she had an opponent. When she started teaching you, I hoped you might get so good you could beat her once. But you lost interest. Not your game.”

Veronica could feel the familiar lump in her throat when the subject of Lianne Mars came up. “Do you think Mom was sad I didn’t play?”

“ _No_ , Veronica. It’s nothing like that. If parents got to pick all their kids’ hobbies, you’d spend all day listening to jazz on vinyl and watching _Blazing Saddles_. You’re your own person—every last frustrating, non- _Blazing-Saddles_ -watching inch of you. Parents don’t want anything else for their kids.”

Veronica kept her tears in check. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Love you, Veronica,” he said with a smile. “Now. Your move. Tell me about this case while we play.”

Two hours later—and after several more victories for Keith, Veronica was leafing through Andrew’s copy of _The Knights of the Round Table_ while Keith watched the tape.

“This is interesting,” Veronica said. “When I flipped through the book before, I noticed that some of the sentences were underlined, but I figured it was just what you would find in any high school English book assigned for homework. But these sentences aren’t highlighted at random. Listen to this. Page ten: ‘And ye priests and bishops shall support the quest with tithing and prayers.’ Page fourteen: “Three knights did pledge to find the grail.” Page twenty-eight: “The queen did bless them and wish them comfort on their journey.”

“He’s using a book code,” Keith said.

Veronica nodded in agreement. “Somehow Andrew was getting help during the game. He’d get a message with a page number and he’d know which piece to move. But there had to be more, right? Like where to move the piece.”

“The board makes an easy grid,” Keith said. “If you can give Andrew the page number to tell him the piece, you can also give him a grid coordinate to tell him the right square. That’s only a few digits, but in the right order, he’d know exactly where to move.”

“That makes sense. Just a few digits would be enough, so it would be fast and hard to spot. But how was he receiving it in the middle of the floor? He’d gone through a metal detector, no one in the audience could reach him physically...” She looked at the TV. “The answer’s got to be on that tape.”

The phone rang and the doorbell buzzed at the same time. Keith went to the phone while Veronica answered the door to find Wallace. He looked troubled.

“Is everything OK? Did you get caught?” she asked.

He shook his head as he entered. “It’s not always about you, Veronica. In the locker room after practice James Houghton started throwing up uncontrollably. The team doctor thinks it’s food poisoning. If we keep losing players at this rate, the team isn’t going to be able to fill out a squad.”

Veronica was about to close the door behind him, but Keith was already heading out, his good blazer draped over his shoulder, which meant it was a client he wanted to look good for. “Got to cut things short, hon. A possible case.”

“Go! I had a great time, Dad. Good games.”

Keith said goodbye to Wallace and Veronica and hurried out.

Veronica turned to Wallace. “I’ve got dinner in the oven if you’re not too worried about my lasagna infecting you with the team curse as well.”

“I’ll risk it. I didn’t get to eat after practice because _somebody_ sent me out to spy on the Echolls mansion. Why couldn’t you have gone again, by the way?”

“I’m a known quantity there. If anyone came around, they would have recognized me immediately.”

Wallace pulled the digital camera Veronica had loaned him out of his bag. “I circled the property several times. Huge walls. And did you know they have cameras all over that place? I felt like I was planning a heist.”

Veronica pulled the dish she’d made out of the oven and placed it on a pair of hot pads. “Aaron Echolls is a famous movie star. He needs security, I guess. Who did you see?”

“Here’s the housekeeper,” Wallace said, turning the camera so Veronica could see the screen.

Veronica glanced over. The small LCD screen showed Leticia Navarro, Weevil’s grandmother, as she left the house. So she _had_ been hired back. That ruled out the main possibility that she’d been considering—that Leticia hadn’t been rehired and instead the Echolls family had hired a relative of Sergio and Esteban, thus allowing Esteban easy access to the house. With that in place, Esteban could have checked the website from a computer that couldn’t be traced back to them. It seemed far-fetched, but that was all she had left.

“OK. Who else?” Veronica took the foil off the top of the lasagna and put it back in the oven.

“This girl tried to jump the front gates, but couldn’t make it.” Wallace showed her the picture.

Veronica didn’t recognize her. “An Aaron Echolls groupie, most likely. Next?”

“This one I could have taken pictures of all day. She had a key and everything—went through that back entrance to the grounds you told me about. Speaking of which, how did you know about the door?”

“Lilly sometimes used it to sneak in to see Logan that way. Show me the picture, Wallace!”

“Don’t be jealous.” He turned the camera and Veronica saw the blond hair of Caitlin Ford.

Somehow Caitlin had gone from being almost totally vanished from sight and from mind to being everywhere Veronica turned in just a few days. What was she doing sneaking into the Echolls mansion? Had Logan gotten back together with her? Or was it something to do with the case? Veronica had a hard time believing that Caitlin had any interest in chess, Andrew Spencer, or Sergio. So if it was to do with the case, something much bigger was going on.

“You did good work, Wallace. And in ten minutes, the cheese will have browned on the lasagna and I’ll have your reward. You are carbo-loading for the game, right?”

“I’m _always_ carbo-loading.” Wallace said. He flopped down on the couch, and reached for the remote. “Mind if I watch TV?”

“Sure. Why don’t you watch that tape of the chess game and see if you can spot how Andrew Spencer cheated at chess.”

“Veronica Mars! I just burned half a tank of gas for you, and now you want me to watch two chess players sit— _sit!_ —in middle of the gym and waste all that beautiful court space?”

“Watch it until I serve you this wonderful dinner, and we’ll call it even,” Veronica called. Wallace grumbled, but the next time she looked over, he was watching the chess game.

Just as she was pulling the lasagna out of the oven, Wallace asked, “What’s that red dot that shows up every so often in the upper left corner?”

He paused the tape and rewound the frame until he could show Veronica what he’d seen.

“You see,” he said, pointing. “It’s a funny red dot. Every time I get bored watching this dumb game, I look up at the pennant flags from the Neptune Pirates. So many great wins from over the years, those are way more interesting to think about than the chess game… But sometimes there’s a little red dot on one of them. Maybe some kind of glitch in the recording?”

Veronica pointed at Andrew, sitting at the chessboard. He was positioned on the right. In that moment on the screen, he very much appeared to be looking at the flags. A slow smile crept onto her face. “It’s not a glitch. That’s how Andrew’s cheating.”

“With little red dots? How is that possible?” Wallace asked, squinting his eyes at the screen.

Veronica’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket. “This is Veronica,” she said, her eyes still glued to the red dots on the pennant.

“It’s Mac. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. I’m sending you the transcript of the keystroke log you asked for.”

“Don’t leave me hanging, Mac. Good news?”

“I think you’ll be very pleased.”

“You’re the greatest, Mac.” Veronica hung up her phone. “Eat fast, Wallace. You’ve got work to do.”

“ _I’ve_ got work to do? What are you going to be doing?”

“The opening moves of something I like to call the Scottish Gambit.”

“And what exactly is the Scottish Gambit?”

“Something my dad just taught me. Life’s more fun if all your plans have names. Let’s get to work.”

**Chapter 6**

Martin Nance, the representative from the California Chess Federation, paused as Veronica led him into the gymnasium.

“Why are we meeting in here exactly?”

“In order to prove that my client Sergio Vasquez is the rightful winner of the chess scholarship, we need to meet in the room where the competition occurred.”

“Your _client_?”

“I believe the Federation rules say the player who challenges game results may have an advocate represent him if he chooses, isn’t that correct?”

Nance pursed his lips. “Technically speaking, yes.”

“Then, technically speaking, I’m Sergio’s advocate.”

Inside the gym, Veronica had set up a chessboard on a card table, as close to the same spot as the table had been in the video. She’d also arranged for the AV class to have a television and VCR hooked up and wheeled to the edge of the court.

On one side of the table was Sergio, sitting alone. On the other side, Andrew Spencer. This was the first time she’d actually seen him in real life—so far, he was just a face on a video. He sat in his seat looking both bored and confident—like this was a done deal.

Also on the gymnasium floor were Vice Principal Clemmons, Jake and Duncan Kane, Coach Reed, not to mention Wallace and the rest of Pirates basketball team—those who were still fit to play, at least.

“Veronica,” Vice Principal Clemmons said, “you are facing some serious disciplinary actions for this. Coach Foster needs the court for practice.”

“If Coach Foster is willing to loan me ten minutes of time on the court, I think he will come away with a new outlook on Friday’s big game against Pan High.”

Coach Foster didn’t look like he had any desire to be persuaded. But Wallace spoke up, “It’s not like we’re going to find four new star players in ten minutes.”

Foster grunted and scratched his chin. “Take a seat, boys.” To Veronica, he said, “You have ten minutes.” The players headed up into the stands, where Veronica saw Caitlin Ford sitting next to James Houghton, who looked half-green with his food poisoning.

“Thank you, Coach,” Veronica said, holding in her smile. “You won’t regret it.”

“And why am I here exactly, Duncan?” Jake Kane asked, apparently not even willing to address Veronica directly.

“Because Veronica said it was important for you to be here, Dad. And I believe her.”

“Ten minutes,” she repeated.

Jake checked his watch and nodded.

She turned to Mr. Nance. “Vice Principal Clemmons, this is Mr. Martin Nance, from the California Chess Federation. He’s here to review the match between Sergio and Andrew.”

The two adults shook hands. “Well, uh, usually I just review the game moves and interview the players. Normally there isn’t all this … spectacle,” Nance said.

“Spectacle is Veronica’s middle name,” Clemmons said.

“When there’s a four-year scholarship at stake, a little spectacle can go a long ways toward getting your attention, Mr. Nance. Sergio was certain that Andrew cheated to win the tournament. And—having reviewed the case—I am forced to agree.”

“I won fair and square,” Andrew said. “You can’t prove I did anything.”

“I can prove you don’t know how to play chess for starters.” Veronica went to the table next to the television and opened her laptop. “This website logs scores on a chess tutorial that Andrew—AKA WrestlingAndy—took recently. Why would a chess player good enough to win a tournament need a beginner’s tutorial?”

Andrew shrugged. “Just foolin’ around. It was for a gag.”

Veronica had lobbed him a softball, knowing he could easily swat it away. But in doing so, he’d admitted that he had been the one to use the tutorial.

“I agree,” Mr. Nance said. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Then if you are advanced enough that don’t need a tutorial, Andrew, can you demonstrate the first few moves of the Ruy Lopez opening, the most common opening in chess?”

Andrew folded his hands across his chest. “I don’t have to prove anything.”

“But you do know it?”

“Just because I know it, doesn’t mean I want to waste my time showing it to you.”

“How about the Gepetto Defense? Do you know that one as well?”

“Of course I do,” Andrew sneered.

Veronica turned her attention to the chess official. “Mr. Nance, isn’t it interesting that a supposed chess prodigy is pretending to know the name of a chess defense that I just made up?”

Nance’s eyes had narrowed. “There is no Gepetto Defense, Andrew,” he said in what Veronica recognized as the default “very serious” voice of adults everywhere.

Andrew played it cool. “I thought she meant something else. Whatever.” He shrugged. “These questions don’t mean anything. They aren’t proof. I won. I checkmated his king. Disprove _that_.”

Nance was staring at Andrew, clearly thinking hard. Finally he looked at Veronica. “Do you have proof, Ms. Mars? I didn’t walk in here inclined to believe that cheating had occurred. Let’s just say… my mind is now open.”

Veronica flicked on the television. “This is a tape of the final match. You’ll notice that Andrew is reading a book while he waits—”

“Totally allowed,” Nance said.

“Of course. We’ve identified the book as _The Knights of the Round Table_ , a frequently assigned book at both Pan and Neptune. Here’s my copy,” Veronica said, holding up the book (it was actually Andrew’s but she didn’t want him or Mr. Nance to know that). “So. This tape shows the first move of the game. Andrew is playing white. Watch the upper left corner of the screen.” She pressed play and a red dot appeared on a pennant before disappearing and reappearing again elsewhere on another pennant. It flickered a couple more times before Veronica stopped the tape. “Did you see it?”

“A little red dot flickered a few times,” Vice Principal Clemmons said. “So what?”

“That little red dot flickered four times, actually.” Veronica held up a small silver cartridge. She pointed her laser pointer toward the pennants and everyone looked up. “First over the number two, then a nine, a five, and finally the four,” she said, highlighting each number with a red dot. “These pennants act as a code. Over the years, the Neptune Pirates have won often enough that the numbers one through nine all appear somewhere on the pennants above.”

Everyone jumped a bit when the basketball players erupted in a cheer. Veronica laughed. She hadn’t expected an applause line, but she took it.

“What do those numbers mean?” Veronica asked rhetorically. “The first two numbers give a page number. In this case, twenty-nine. And on page twenty-nine of _The Knights of the Round Table_ we find this sentence: ‘I shall be your pawn, milady, and go where you command.’ The next two numbers give coordinates to a row. Five columns to the right and four columns up. Put them all together, and that little red light gives a clear command. Anyone want to guess what Andrew’s first move was?”

Veronica pressed play on the tape, and Andrew advanced a pawn two spaces to land exactly where Veronica predicted. “This exact same sequence happens for the rest of the game. Andrew gets a code from the laser pointer on the pennants, he checks his book for the right piece, and he makes his move. Would you like me to show you the next move, Mr. Nance?”

“No, I’ve seen enough, Ms. Mars.” Nance moved forward to face Andrew. “This was all for the scholarship?”

Andrew wouldn’t meet Nance’s eyes, but he nodded his head almost imperceptibly.

“Who helped you, young man?” Nance asked. “Was it a player? Or someone with a chess computer?”

“Is that really important?” Vice Principal Clemmons asked.

Nance pointed to the screen. “To play a game as sophisticated as this one, it would take either a grandmaster—which means a grandmaster in the California Chess Federation helped this student cheat—or someone with a very good chess computer. I want to know who it was.”

Andrew was silent.

“You don’t need him to tell you,” Veronica said. “The person who helped him cheat is on the tape.”

All eyes converged on the television set.

“This video was recorded by Sergio’s uncle. I kept focusing on the players so much that I missed what else was happening on the screen. Not only the red dots on the pennants, but also the people in the audience. Have you noticed the hair on the woman right in front of the camera? It’s pretty distinctive.”

“Should I know who that is?” Mr. Nance asked, squinting at the screen closely.

Veronica glanced at her watch. “You will in a second.”

At that moment, Keith Mars came through the entrance to the gym, his hand firmly on the arm of Kane Software developer Chris Hopper. Nance did a double take between her and the screen. Chris’s bright pink hair was a clear match to the head of hair at the base of the screen.

“Chris?” Jake Kane asked in surprise. “Keith, what’s the meaning of this?”

“Mr. Kane,” Veronica cut in, “Chris Hopper has been smuggling Kane Software secrets out of your company for months now. She’s been angry ever since you cut off development of the Oceanside Chess Tutorial. It was her baby, and when you stopped its release, she decided she wanted revenge. She stole code for Oceanside—among several other Kane Software secrets—and was going to start her own company. But she needed a success story to market the tutorial. A rags-to-riches story with a hero who came out of nowhere to win—all thanks to ‘her’ program. Enter Andrew. After winning, she had planned for him to go on a publicity tour on behalf of the chess program that got him into college. It would be rebranded from Oceanside, of course. But the tutorial was yours.”

“She’s making it all up, Mr. Kane,” Hopper pleaded. “I _did_ give Andrew the program, but it was just because I wanted to help him learn. I wasn’t trying to steal secrets from the company!”

“I would like to believe her,” Veronica said. “As Mac would say, we need more women in tech. But the keystrokes don’t lie.” She turned to face Hopper. “The disc of the program that I gave you at Neptune Point was a copy of the original in every way. Except mine included a program that began immediately logging your keystrokes and sending them back to me over the Internet.”

Veronica handed a ream of paper to Jake Kane. “Among the keystrokes logged include many interesting emails. One to Andrew, advising him to not admit to anything during this review. One to a business partner in China that she was negotiating to sell Kane Software secrets to. And another to none other than… Caitlin Ford.”

There was a gasp from the basketball players in the bleachers, who were all sitting near Caitlin.

Veronica looked up into the stands and smiled. “I didn’t get the connection at first. Maybe it was Chris’s pink hair or Caitlin’s bimbo demeanor that kept me from seeing the connection, but finally I put it together. The Pan High School yearbook doesn’t lie.” Veronica picked up a copy and opened it to a bookmarked page. “Here’s Chris Ford. Class of 1994. Caitlin’s older—and perhaps I should add, smarter—cousin.

“Both had a bone to pick with Neptune. Caitlin for being thrown out of the Oh-niners by Logan and his friends. And Chris, as a Pan High graduate, never liked Neptune to start with, thanks to the bitter school rivalry. But she had particular cause to dislike anything to do with Neptune after Jake Kane axed her chess tutorial. So what did they do? They plotted to take down Neptune anyway they could. Andrew Spencer wasn’t chosen at random. Chris picked him because he went to Pan High and she didn’t want a Neptune student to win the scholarship.

“Meanwhile, Caitlin has been working on her own stratagem. Am I the only one who noticed that the weird accidents that have been happening to the basketball team started when Caitlin began hanging around the team? I talked to Nick about the anonymous tip off about him using drugs. Ten points if you can guess who he says _gave_ him the drugs? And just yesterday I saw Caitlin give James Houghton a water bottle. Only hours later he’s taken out with food poisoning.”

Caitlin was already on her feet and backing down the bleachers away from the team. “I swear, guys, I don’t know what she’s talking about.” But she didn’t attempt any more of a denial than that. She turned and bolted out of the gym.

A few of the players made to follow suit, but Coach Reed blew his whistle fiercely and halted them in their tracks. “Sit your asses down!”

“But, Coach!”

“That is _not_ how we behave! Sit!” They reluctantly did, and Coach Reed turned to Vice Principal Clemmons. “I trust that you can deal with Ms. Ford appropriately?”

Clemmons sighed and looked at Veronica. “Once I confirm everything that Veronica has said here, I’ll likely be expelling Caitlin. Would you like me to call over to Pan High, Coach? I could ask that your game against them be delayed. Pan High might be interested in avoiding a public airing of just how far one of their alums has gone to secure a victory.”

Coach Reed agreed. Vice Principal Clemmons gave Veronica a curt nod and left the gymnasium.

Veronica turned to Martin Nance. “And with that, on behalf of my client, Sergio Vasquez, I rest my case.”

Nance, who had a look of wonder on his face at all that had just transpired in front of him, immediately burst into applause, and was quickly followed by the rest of the Neptune Pirates, who rose from the feet in a standing ovation.

**Chapter 7**

Veronica waited outside the gym for Sergio to come out of his final meeting with Martin Nance. In the meantime, she enjoyed the parade of people exiting the gym ahead of him.

Jake and Duncan were first, and Jake looked as uncomfortable as ever. “Veronica… thank you for what you found. I’m dismayed to hear that you somehow managed to install a piece of spyware onto Kane Software computers—”

“Dad!” Duncan interrupted. “She just _helped_ you and the company. And that’s what you focused on?”

Jake paused a moment and then nodded. “Well. I guess it’s a good enough reason for us to review our cyber security measures. Thank you, Veronica.” He went on ahead.

“Thanks for getting him here, Duncan,” Veronica said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I knew that if you asked, it would be for a good reason.” Duncan smiled kindly at Veronica and she smiled back.

After Duncan and Jake were gone, Wallace came out in his street clothes. “Pan High agreed to reschedule the game so Coach Reed cancelled practice for the day. You really nailed it in there, Veronica.”

“I hope you tell the team that I’d love to have their applause after all my successful cases.”

“I’ll do that.”

Sergio came bounding out of the gym, Martin Nance coming out shortly behind him. “I won! I officially won! I’m going to Hearst College!”

Nance stepped forward. “Chris Hopper admitted to using Oceanside to come up with the moves against him. That means Sergio was playing against one of the smartest chess programs in the world. After reviewing the game, I have to say—anyone who can play that well against a supercomputer like Oceanside—even to a loss—is an incredible chess talent. You have a bright future ahead of you, young man.” They shook hands and Nance strode away across the quad.

Sergio surprised Veronica by turning and leaping toward her, embracing her in a bear hug. “Thank you, Veronica! There’s no way I could have done this without you.”

Veronica laughed and returned the hug. She was momentarily taken with the young man’s embrace. It felt good. Like having a younger brother.

There was a roar from a motorcycle in the parking lot, and Veronica felt Sergio tense. She knew he was expecting Esteban.

Looking up, though, she recognized the rider as Weevil.

He took off his helmet and nodded at Sergio. “Going after older women, little man?”

Sergio didn’t say anything.

“You picked a crazy one, though. Did Veronica tell you that she asked me to smash out her own car window two nights ago? Tried to pay me and everything, but it was a job I took particular pleasure in, so I was happy to do it for free.”

Wallace and Sergio looked to Veronica, and she nodded. “It’s true. I didn’t trust Chris and I wanted her to have a really good reason to take the disc as bait. Making her think someone in a motorcycle gang was after it seemed like good incentive.”

“And you agreed?” Sergio asked Weevil, almost shyly, but still clearly curious.

“That I did.”

Sergio stood up straight. “I don’t want to join the PCHers. I want to be a chess player.”

“I know that, little man. I don’t want you to join the PCHers, either. Go make something of yourself.”

“But—”

“But your brother wants you to join. I know. There’s a reason I’m the leader and he’s not. One of those reasons is that I can recognize that a twelve-year-old chess player isn’t _ever_ going to make a good biker. You’re good, little man. Don’t worry about us.”

Sergio nodded, smiling wide.

“Esteban’s still stealing Sergio’s tournament winnings,” Veronica said, guessing that Sergio wasn’t willing to say anything negative about his older brother in front of Eli.

Weevil paused. “That I didn’t know. You know how I feel about family. It’ll stop.”

Veronica remembered how Esteban had approached her in the house. “Esteban is still bad news, Eli.”

Weevil was already putting his helmet back on. “Aren’t we all?” The bike made another roaring noise and without another word or gesture, he was riding of out the parking lot.

“It started with a chess tournament but this case got a lot bigger, Veronica,” Wallace said. “Don’t you ever worry that these little projects of yours are going to get too big to handle?”

“I’ve had the same thought. But the bigger cases get, the more I want to get to the bottom of them.”

Wallace shook his head. “There is one thing that doesn’t make sense to me, though. What was Caitlin Ford doing sneaking around the Echolls place?”

“That took me awhile, too. I think her cousin put her up to it. Even though Chris unwittingly let me install a keystroke logger on her computer, she was quite sharp about all the ways she could leave digital fingerprints. If anyone got wise to Andrew cheating and found the website, the IP address of her visits to the site would point right to her computer. So she killed two birds with one stone. She had Caitlin check it from a computer she still had access to but that wouldn’t lead back to them—I’m guessing Logan never got his house key back after the breakup. And, if the scheme was discovered, it would look like the Echolls were somehow involved in the software leak. Thus pitting two prominent Oh-niner families against each other. It could have triggered some intra-Neptune feuding. Millionaire versus millionaire.”

“They would do that? Like some sort of Oh-niner cold war.”

“Between the Fords and the Kanes and the Echolls and the Casablancas, I think they do worse to each other all the time. If Neptune were a chessboard, it would be a battle royale, with the Oh-niners playing the kings and queens.”

“If we were giving out titles, I’m pretty certain you’d be the queen of Neptune, Veronica.”

“No, Wallace. One thing I’ve learned over and over this year is that we’re all just pawns. Pawns in some game the Oh-niners are playing. But someone very smart told me that pawns are the soul of chess. And every so often a pawn can reach the other side of the board, and then it can choose whatever piece it wants to be. So I’m not giving up just yet.”

**Author’s Note**

To the fans of Veronica Mars:

_The Queen of Neptune_ takes place between early on during the first season of _Veronica Mars_. Probably somewhere around Episode 7, 8, or 9? The delay of the big basketball game against Pan High in _The Queen of Neptune_ is what caused it to be rescheduled—see Episode 16 (“Betty and Veronica”).

I wrote it years ago, when Kindle Worlds was a thing. When that shut down, I didn't know what to do with it and finally I decided I should just post it here for all the true fans of Veronica. I hope you had as much fun re-entering Neptune as I did.

My website is erikhanberg.com if you want to see other books I've written. Alas, none of the others are about Veronica. ;)

—Erik


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